As any coffee snob can attest, freshly ground beans give your morning cup of Joe way better flavor than you’d get from a bag of grinds. Coffee beans oxidize and get stale faster after they’ve been ground, so using a grinder within half an hour of brewing them will give you the best flavor. If only it didn’t mean you had to deal with a dirty coffee grinder.
Eventually, that daily use will catch up with your coffee grinder, with residue from the beans building up in the blades. You might notice a weird odor coming from your grinder, and the oils can leave your cup of coffee with a muddy taste. Thankfully, you don’t need to wear your fingers out scrubbing while you fumble with the little blades. According to The Kitchn, all you need is a bit of rice.
Instead of your normal coffee beans, pour ¼ cup of rice into your blade grinder, then let it run until the grains turn into fine particles. Dump out the rice powder and you’ll notice some stuck to the blades—that’s because the powder is sticking to the oil gunking up your grinder. Take a damp cloth and wipe away the ground rice, and the oils should come away with it. Rice has a subtle enough taste that no matter what kind you use—brown, basmati, you name it—it won’t leave any weird aftertaste in your coffee grounds.
Viola! Clean blades, ready for your next brew. Repeat the process any time your blades start to look or smell a bit dirty. Your next cup of coffee will taste so much better.
